3 Reasons to Prioritize Incident Management in Your ITSM Plans

Establishing an effective incident management strategy is critical if you want to be able to step forward into mature IT service management configurations. Advanced ITSM modules may come across as more exciting than incident management, but you need the core gains offered by incident-focused advances to move forward.

Think of it this way - what are the barriers to innovation in your organization right now? For many organizations, the first thing that springs to mind is having so much to do that employees can't afford to take on any kind of new project or change. This can put a major dent in any efforts to revitalize operations within your organization, and is particularly noteworthy on the IT help desk. Support teams who are already operating at peak capacity won't have time to take on the new tasks that come up with advanced ITSM modules. You need to find ways to free up your staff if you want to create sustainable innovation, and incident management makes that possible. Three ways it achieves this goal are:

1. Accelerating PrioritizationEffectively prioritizing support tickets is absolutely essential if you want your staff members to use their time as efficiently as possible. You can't afford to have your help desk team spending large amounts of time on seemingly urgent, but unimportant tasks, when high-priority support tickets are languishing in an inbox because the system hasn't prioritized anything. An incident management platform can gather support tickets and use keyword algorithms, end-user input, and similar information to attach a priority designation to the ticket. From there, the solution will forward the support ticket to the appropriate member of your team and sort it effectively within their dashboard.

This prioritization saves users from having to spend time opening tickets and making decisions about prioritization on their own. Even saving a minute or two spent on each support ticket can lead to creating an hour or more in each of your workers' days.

2. Simplifying EscalationWithout an incident management platform in place, escalating an incident requires users to follow a complex manual workflow. In many cases, passing the ticket up through the ranks of users involves contacting the individual who will be getting the support message, telling them about what has already been done to try and resolve the issue and making sure the handing-off process is documented properly. An incident management platform will have automations in place to document these details with minimal user input, making it much easier for your workers to quickly pass complex support requests on to higher level engineers.

Like improved prioritization, simplified escalation saves workers a few minutes at multiple points throughout the day. The time savings can add up quickly.

3. Streamlining ResolutionsThe automation features, prioritization capabilities, and similar benefits of an incident management program add up to a situation where users are able to get the job done much more efficiently on an everyday basis. Users often need to complete a wide range of processes and interact with their colleagues on multiple occasions when responding to a support ticket. If these processes are slow and cumbersome, your teams won't have time to focus on innovation. The ability to resolve basic incidents quickly will go a long way in creating time for your workers to focus on special projects.

Innovation comes at a significant time cost. If you want to build a culture of positive growth as a company - something that is key if you want to develop an advanced ITSM system - you need to protect your employees from unnecessary menial work. Incident management plays a huge role in this process, and is an invaluable first step in a larger move toward ITSM maturity.

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